The Open Education Movement

On March 26, 2009, MacLearning.org and Apple sponsored a free conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge Mass. The focus of the AcademiX Conference was on how digital learning environments are shaping the ways in which we teach and learn in today's world.

The opening session was presented by Dr. Vijay Kumar of MIT, titled " 'Open': The New Deal for Education," where he discussed the concept of the open education movement. The idea of "open education" is that educational content should be made free and open for all to use and benefit from.

The importance of this movement is that it releases the knowledge taught in Universities and Colleges to advance education worldwide. The work being done by exemplary teachers in the classroom can be shared with the world, and also provide a model for others to follow. And with having the courses available for students to review, it can give them a glimpse of the type of education they will receive if they choose to attend that specific school.

Dr. Kumar used the MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) project as an example of this movement, a site where the full materials from MIT's courses are freely available to the public, the number currently at over 1,800 courses having been submitted on a completely voluntary basis by the MIT faculty. While there is the concern of having one's course materials freely available for anyone to view, Dr. Kumar made the point that simply because anyone has the ability to view the course content, it is not the same as getting an education from MIT. The OCW project and the content it contains serves as a model for other faculty and a supplement for the students or any self-learner. It is the task of the faculty to guide their students and to help them think critically about the content from these courses.

While MIT was the first school to take part in this movement, more and more schools are now following in their example. The OpenCourseWare Consortium is a collaboration of over 200 higher education institutions and organizations participating in this movement. Interested in learning more? Their website provides much more information and also gives visitors access to view some of the great educational materials being provided by participating schools from around the world.

Some additional related links about this topic:

• MIT Faculty Adopt Open Access for Scholarly Articles, by David Nagel for Campus Technology, March 23 2009
• Opening Up Education - The Remix, by Toru Iiyoshi and M.S. Vijay Kumar, March 17 2009
• Open Content and the Emerging Global Meta-University, by Charles M. Vest (EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 41, no. 3 [May/June 2006]: 18-30)